Trim
by Bainaku
Summary: Marceline howled.  Literally.  "Geez!  You almost ripped off my ear!"


**A/N: **Because the fandom needs more Wereceline and I had a spare moment to write some!

Heavily inspired by both theoeuvre's and matuska's drawings on Tumblr. This one's for them.

**Words: **1,030

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**TRIM**

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"Rrrrggghfgmsnrr!"

"Hush," Bubblegum scolded. "And stop _flinching_. You're only making it worse."

"Well stop _yanking_!" snarled Marceline, glaring at the princess over her shoulder. "That's tender, you know."

"You're a big bad drooling beastie. Grow some nuts and deal with it," the princess laughed. Reaching up—up, up, _up!_—to pluck at the burr stuck in her friend's combo of coarse hair and coarser fur, she muffled a giggle and added, "These're _everywhere_, so you might as well get comfortable. You're going to be here a while."

Lifting her hands—_Paws_? debated Bubblegum thoughtfully—Marceline buried her face in them and growled, "This is all your fault. All your _flipping _fault, Bonnibel."

"Oh really?" Bubblegum gave the burr an experimental tug. "Explain to me exactly how I instructed you to go leaping headfirst into the peppermint pricklebushes, hm?"

"You"—and the vampire's muzzle wrinkled, invisible in the mirror but obvious as a dark tube in Bubblegum's peripheral vision—"threw the Frisbee that way. On _purpose_."

"Yes, well, forgive me for expecting you to just fly after it. How was I supposed to know you'd try to catch it in your mouth? Like _this_?"

"Like what?" asked Marceline sulkily.

"Like a long-limbed wolf creature," Bubblegum replied, and yanked free the burr.

Marceline howled. Literally. "_Geez_! You almost ripped off my _ear_!"

"And you probably just woke up the whole castle! _Ssssh_!" The princess chucked the burr into the nearby waste bin with a grimace of guilt—there _was _quite a bit of fur (and no small amount of hair) still attached to it. Rocking onto her tiptoes, Bubblegum sank her fingers into the dense mat behind the vampire's abused ear and began to knead. "I'm sorry," she said. "Is this better?"

The bubble of ire in her throat tapering to a thrum, Marceline acknowledged, "Little to the left. Ooh—yeah, right there." And then, "_Mmm_. Harder. You know how I like it."

Bubblegum flushed. She nevertheless worked her fingers deeper into the fur and, when she found it, dragged her nails along the seam of Marceline's ear and skull.

_Drmm-drmm-drmm_. Marceline's tail lashed against the vanity bench. Her ear slumped willingly into Bubblegum's palm too, soft as silk and cool to the touch. Worrying her thumb fondly over its point, the princess lowered her other hand to scratch at Marceline's wooly hip and murmured, "I don't want to hurt you, but you can't just walk around with those prickles stuck on your head forever."

The vampire's leg gave a reflexive twitch; the sharpened ends of her toes tapped the floor. "You could cut them out," she suggested.

Bubblegum blinked, folding her hand flat over the hem of her friend's pants. "I could," she agreed. "You'd let me?"

"I think you're old enough to know not to run with scissors."

Pinching the ear in her possession, the princess replied, "I mean, you'd _trust _me to do that?"

Marceline's shaggy, pseudo-canine head rolled back against Bubblegum's shoulder. Her teeth glistened with ropes of saliva as she leered. "Is there a reason I shouldn't? Wanna shave your name across my scalp, Bonnibel?"

"No. I don't have," and the princess tugged a hank of the stuff for good measure, "hair—fur—_whatever_. Not like yours. Which means I have no experience dealing with it. Which means I could _royally _screw it up." She finished, "You might end up looking ridiculous."

"Princess, as much as I appreciate your concern, I am currently studded with little sticky bits of striped plant candy." Marceline motioned to her torso, her long, clawed fingers heavy but graceful for the gesture. "I don't think it can get much worse. Not to mention"—the vampire reached to tap the mirror—"I can't see what my hair really looks like anyway. No reflection, remember?"

"That's a valid point…" Chewing her lip, the princess determined, "Fine. Open that drawer there." As Marceline complied, Bubblegum thrust her hand into the bureau's depths, produced a pair of sewing scissors, and summated keenly, "Let's do this."

_Snip. Snip snip. SNIP-snip._

Fur and hair fell around the transformed queen in a drizzle: a shower, a downpour. "Uhm," Marceline ventured dubiously, "you might wanna slow down, Bonnibel. I can feel air on the back of my neck—"

"Nonsense! I'm being _creative_, Marceline. Exercising my artistic side." _Snip-snip!_ "Let me work!"

"Artistic side?" Marceline shifted uncomfortably and stared at the mirror's surface, blank but for the occasional flurry of a pink elbow. "Since when do you have an _artistic _side?"

Bubblegum scoffed, "There are facets to my personality you can't even begin to imagine. I'm a complicated person, you know."

A hunk of hair the size of a melon wafted down between Marceline's feet. Swallowing hard, she agreed, "Yeah, no kidding. Look, maybe you should stop—"

Bubblegum's fingers seized and massaged the crease of the vampire's ear. Marceline fell silent with a shudder, eyes sliding closed as the princess maneuvered the scissors deftly through her ruff. She dozed to the sound of the blades whispering.

"Finished," Bubblegum professed at last. Sliding her hand around to cup Marceline's elongated jaw, she dropped the scissors back into their drawer. She flipped on the bureau's lamp and suggested next, nodding to Marceline's sudden shadow on the nearby wall, "Have a look."

Marceline did. Her hair's outline on said wall shaped a spiked pixie cut stretching down to her earlobes. "Creepy _chic_," she approved, lifting a hand to trace one of her hair's newfound spires.

"You like it?" asked Bubblegum shyly.

Marceline's tail wagged again in answer, its low _drmm-drmmm-drmm _reverberating throughout the bedchamber. "Gotta gig tomorrow night," she said. "Gonna rock it hardcore now, babe." Glancing up at her friend's face, the vampire smiled a slow, fangy smile and supplied, "Artistic side, huh?" She felt for Bubblegum's hip, the pads of her palm rasping against the other monarch's nightshirt, claws prickling slow over the skin beneath it. "You hiding anything else I might like to experience personally? Any other"—her voice dropped to a rumble—"facets?"

Bubblegum's reply, when it came, betrayed a grin and an ember of invitation. "…maybe I am."

"Show me," Marceline commanded, and flicked off the light.


End file.
